Jessie Conners is My Rich Dad

Rich Dad Poor Dadis {I’m guessing} a book about having a rich dad :: it really makes life a lot easier … so do try to have one. There might also be some stuff in there about getting rich on real estate :: but that’s obviously all bollocks … stick with having a rich dad.

If you don’t have a rich dad :: then don’t put shit on your credit cards … I’m seriously you guys. You guys know what I’m talking about? You guys?

We arrived early :: as requested by the paid person who called to confirm that we’d be attending this important getting rich opportunity … “bring a friend” she said {expecially someone you hate and want to torture}. Signing in at the salesman staffed registration table earned us super classy name tags :: to remind us that we were very serious people … with very serious commitments to our rich futures. This one got donated to a Poor Dad bar napkin I met later :: napkin lives were changed for the richer … no doubt.

Rather than allow the ballroom to fill-out gradually :: they made us wait outside in a faux expectant {and awkwardly matched} huddle … something revolutionary must be behind those fucking doors. Once we’d been forced to wait sufficiently :: a puffy haired old-school salesman d-bag did his tepid version of ra ra stuff … and then laid out the ground rules …

1) No questions.

2) No pictures or recordings of their getting you richer quicker secrets :: intellectual property and what not … the American dream … I’m sure you understand.

… I love it when commercials come with lots of rules.

We are then ushered down the aisle of taped off rows of chairs like the worstest :: saddest … fucking wedding ever. We’re each told specifically where to sit :: all packed upfront in the unpacked room … if you didn’t like your seat you had to negotiate with some asshole in a overworn navy blue sales jacket.

There’s a Robert Kiyosaki gurumentary playing on the screen :: specifically this one … Shooting The Sacred Cows of Money …

… sorry to the billion or so Hindus to whom cows are actually sacred :: but we need to fucking shoot them to pwn our Poor Dads and become rich with monies like Jesus and the Apostle Paul.

Asshole in blue jacket comes back down the aisle to tell @WhatTheWhat she can’t take notes on her iPad :: it’s not that they’re trying to keep their crimes secret … it’s just “they’ve had complaints in the past from attendees” about how other people using the Internet during the “training” is distracting.

Puffy hair guy stops the gurumentary about five minutes in :: he holds up the DVD … some of us will be walking out of here with a copy he says … 120ish people register their excitement at the prospect with silence. Puffy hair tells us to stand up :: introduce ourselves to those sitting around us … and try to secure a loan from them.

“Was anyone able to get a loan?”

… laughs puffy hair not funnily as he begins his introduction of today’s LEARN TO BE RICH™ distinguished keynote speaker. Robert Kiyosaki doesn’t have time to speak at all {or any of} the different life changing events put on by Rich Dad Education :: too busy being on Oprah … and spending other people’s money. But our speaker has also been on The Oprah :: The Today Show :: MSNBC … and other such impressive sounding things that we should be impressed with. Jessie Conners counts among her accomplishments :: a short stint on the first season of The Apprentice … and that’s pretty much it.

Here was Jessie’s most notable contribution to the show …

… talking down to designer Isaac Mizrahi as though he were the idiot that she seems to be.

Jessie reacted to being fired from a reality show like any future business leader with a high school diploma and a overinflated sense of self might :: she filed for trademarks on “The Apprentice” and “You’re Fired” … and aimed to start a new coaching company with a fellow reality TV washout Troy McClain called FinancialApprentice.com. According to Forbes circa 2004 …

The company, which is in the early development stage, aims to educate people on how to obtain credit and boost their credit rating, as well as understand credit risk, loans, mortgages and, to some degree, entrepreneurship…

Though the pair wouldn’t seem to have amassed enough experience to give advice, and certainly there are other people selling similar services–infomercials, anyone?–McClain and Conners are hoping to capitalize on their celebrity to create opportunity for themselves.

Capitalizing on celebrity :: the for realz American Dream … harder than it sounds though. Says Troy McClain …

His plan is to eventually devote all his time to FinancialApprentice.com and make our list of The World’s Richest People by 2009.

If you believe :: anything is possible … except for most things … which will remain impossible.

Unicorns.

By the time a “Where Are They Now?” interview posted on NBC’s site four months later :: Jessie had moved on to other {still stupid} things …

I am President of two companies (Wealth.com and WealthMentoring.com).

… sure you are hot cakes … and you’ll prolly be World’s Richest by 2008.

Philippe Matthews says he met Jessie Conners in a hotel :: where she was meeting with Robert Kiyosaki before he made an appearance on The Philippe Matthews show …

“If you like O you’re going to love P”™

… is no shit the tagline of Matthews’ site.

Anywayz :: by now Jessie Conners has re-evolved into someone who was always all about real estate … says she to P …

It is in my system that I know how numbers work. I will sit up late at night and study the Federal Reserve that’s how crazy I am.

This is the sort of smart talk that Jessie’s Good Will Hunting Federal Reserve night math has yielded …

“The Federal Reserve is all about leverage. They can say they are in trillions of dollars in debt but all that is really is a piece of paper. Nothing is based on gold anymore and all they do if they need money is print it if they need funds but what they are in debt to is themselves and they are in debt because they are holding our liabilities.”

… to the extent that the LEARN TO BE RICH™ Jessie Conners sales pitch had any real estate investing related content :: it was of that same variety … nonsense borderline gibberish.

“You guys, Robert says we are living in epic times. You guys probably already know this, but you can fire your boss right now you guys. You guys can massively change you financial life if you guys just learn the right approach.”

Any man man enough to play a Jessie Conners “you guys” drinking game … will be dead. She’s been giving the same lame ass pitch for 5+ years :: and according to the back of her 2007 “book” Nightmare Nation … Jessie speaks at over 300 events per year. So you’d think she be better :: but she isn’t … she’s Jessie … you guys.

Do you want to stay at home with your kids? Do you want your loved ones to love you back? Do you want to take vacations? Do you want to pay off your debts? Do you want to worry less about retirement? Do you want everything about your life to change right now?

You can have all that :: and more … just max your credit cards out for Jessie’s sugar daddy … you guys.

She holds Kiyosaki’s “new workbook” over her head :: she says she’s going to give it away … a guy in the front row stands up and grabs it from her. It’s an agressive move :: and he gets all up in her personal space … but she doesn’t flinch. She says there’s going to be another opportunity for action later in the show :: and we should all be prepared to stand up and take massive action … like Mr. Front-row-desperate-for-workbook guy had just done. If you can imagine the smell of fucking fake … that’s what it smelled like.

Jessie Conners didn’t go to college … she mentions that a couple of times like it’s an accomplishment. She puts a picture of a modified mobile home up on the screen :: tells us it was her childhood home … then feigns embarrassment. She was poor like us once :: but then she started doing things the Rich Dad way … and the hell if she didn’t deliver her parents from their impoverished mobile home life. Attendees all over the room murmured their approval at this rags to riches altruism story.

But last year when Jessie was doing a promo interview about her new pseudo-MLM / membership / fashion site Peppermint Park :: she told website womenetics …

I was born in Minnesota. My dad was a chiropractor. We lived a fairly normal life, and then when I was about 9 years old, my parents had a sort of midlife crisis. They stopped working, pulled us out of school, and we moved to Wisconsin and lived in a trailer with no running water or electricity for about five years.

We moved back to Minnesota when I was 16… My dad got his chiropractic license renewed, and we lived at my grandparents’ house. He asked me to do the marketing for him. I didn’t even know what that meant; I had to look it up in a dictionary.

I went door to door and did grassroots marketing and built his practice up to the largest practice in the state. My parents were able to move out of my grandparents’ house and buy their own house. Then I started getting calls from other doctors asking me to do their marketing for them. I was 16 years old, managing 13 chiropractic clinics, making around $80,000. I was definitely making more than most of the doctors I was working for. That’s why I decided not to go to college. I thought about becoming a chiropractor, but then I thought, “Why?”

Both stories about her parental rescuing can’t be true … and most likely neither of them are. Jessie continues on womenetics …

[After The Apprentice] I began speaking on real estate investing, speaking every single week for six years, doing six to eight presentations a week all across the country. It was about two years ago that I felt kind of empty.

So according to Jessie Conners :: Jessie Conners was going all around the country telling people to invest in real estate from 2005 – 2008 … basically the worst time in American history to be buying real estate. She kept doing it in 2009 and 2010 :: even though she “felt kind of empty” … until she had an epiphany …

I have a whole bunch of real estate, but it wasn’t my passion. I was wondering “What is my passion? What am I doing?

Her real passion turned out to be for membership site fashion buying MLMs :: and by 2011 Jessie Conners was reporting that Peppermint Park had 10,000 members … each paying $10 per month for the right to shop on her site {$41 more per year than Amazon Prime}. Never mind that the site seems to get no significant traffic :: and that 10,000 paying members is a HUGE number which would make Peppermint Park one of most popular paid membership sites on the web … because obviously Jessie Conners just says whatever the fuck pops into her empty lying head.

If she were making $1.2 million per year on web subscriptions to her passion :: then it would be strange to find her still out on the road … relentlessly shilling for an empty lie in one depressing hotel after the next … but it’s 2012 and that’s exactly what Jessie Conners is out doing with her pathetic sham of a non-celebrity life.

Interspersed with preposterous “and you can too” income claims :: was typical scam/cult drivel like this …

“Do it for other people in your life that you love.”
“In the next year and a half you guys are going to radically change your financial life.”
“You can’t pass a job down to your kid.”
“You obviously came out here to make a change in your life.”
“They come up with all these stupid excuses.”
“Your skepticism is what’s going to make you broke.”

… recorded by @Lanna using pen and paper … like olden times.

After about thirty-five minutes of the same five minutes being repeatedly repeated :: Jessie abruptly mentions the $199 cost of the next seminar … and tells the action taking future rich to head to the back of the room to sign up and pay up. Approximately thirty people bolted from their seats in creepy unison without a moment’s hesitation :: it was exceedingly unnatural and surprising … and the stench of fake significantly thickened.

The room got noisy with payment processing :: and with the group now separated into two … Jessie started chastising those of us who had remained seated. Don’t we even care about our futures … or our families? She took the lapel mic off her {Walmart inspired?} sundress & sweater ensemble and held it close to her lying mouth as she shamed us.

It was too funny not to take a picture :: so I did … which irritated Jessie Conners enough that she called me out on it into her handheld lapel mic.

“If you’re going to take pictures at least wait until afterwards so I can be ready for it.”

… she snarled … visibly angered. Her anger made the scene much funnier to me :: and I am a victims’ advocate rather than a fucking scammer concierge … so I deliberately held up the camera 4S and snapped another pic. “Bonus shot” :: I think I said … because scammers love bonuses.

Jessie mostly kept it together :: and continued trying to berate those of us still seated … obviously not caring about our futures … held back by fear … forever paralyzed in unhappiness … there really are a lot of REO’s out there right now on the federal reserve and we should use them as liabilities on our next $75K cash flow flip … I’m serious you guys the time is now even though I’ve been saying the time is now 300 times a year for eight years … the time is now. What the hell is wrong with you people?

I interrupted Jessie Conners’ smelling of fake catcrap claptrap … and asked her about the refund policy. Had she known who I was :: she’d have known that she’d reached a serious inflection point in her life of grime … but she didn’t so she didn’t … and after a brief spiky look she said …

“Did you go to college?”

Yup!

I guess our row reeked of smarts {fosho} :: so Jessie thought she’d tap into my rage over the poor prospects for college grads … like Dillon Miles whined on-and-on about to The Verge during a lame Underground 8 party. But I’m not a disgruntled college grad :: I’m the motherfucking Salty Droid … so that line of trolling did not go well for Jessie Conners.

“I’m just going to disregard that question.”

… is how she ungracefully bowed out … after admitting that there is a no refund policy. A few minutes later :: before they could kick me out … it was over. Jessie Conners made a rush for the door like someone who wasn’t on commission. While she changed from one silly pair of shoes to another behind the tables of money changers :: I asked her if I could get that photo she’d promised … she declined not nicely and headed str8 out.

Related

124 Comments

If the Philippe Matthews website tagline and the saltydroid.info tagline got in a fight, the saltydroid.info tagline would totally kick the Philippe Matthews website tagline’s ass.

I wonder if they’ll keep choosing Chicago as a venue for their sales pitch seminars.

Head Honcho
September 18, 2012 at 8:21 am

@Wyrd, DAMN, dude. I gotta figure out how to get that on a bumper sticker for my car.

Lanna
September 18, 2012 at 12:47 pm

@Wyrd,

Jason and the Droid live here, but Minions 2.0 has global reach. They can run, but they can’t hide.

Why
September 19, 2012 at 6:06 am

From Nothing Down to Nothing Left.
The Truth Behind the Seminar Industry.

A documentary I would love to see made.

Rich Dad sold out to Russ Witney during the Learning Annex scam days (they are no longer around, Oh wait they are still around selling Cleo Fortune telling scam. Yes they took it from 900 number to the internet)

@Why, you trash Loral Langemeire, and then you reccommend Wealthy Affiliate, with affiliate links to a $47 a month $359 internet marketing scheme, run by a certain Kyle and Carson.

o.k. you are only 22 or thereabouts – but still I am amazed that you think that salty droid is a cool place to get some affiliate income from.

Try reading the rest of the site – and find out about the person you can become in five ten or twenty years – or not?

Think again re your ‘internet marketing’ strategy.

Any one out there *who is not an affiliate* who thinks that Wealthy Affilliate is a good program? Or am I just an oxymoron?

Your only redeeming feature is that you seem to operate under your real name – which you are trashing for evermore if you continue, and if you start using fake names…

Just a few good tips – hope you take them on the chin. After all this site is supposed to be the perfect antidote / reality check for internet marketers.

realestateguru
September 20, 2012 at 9:36 am

@Why,

Loral Langemeire has one of the most efficient (Scary) phone rooms in the business. She has 3 story building, bottom floor is where they cattle call poor suckers, middle floor is a Utah style phone room, top floor where she plots her scams.

@realestateguru, And let’s not forget Loral was in The Secret. Big sick machine and all that.

mirele
September 18, 2012 at 7:37 am

Another fabulous scam with its roots in Utah? Who’da thunk it?

Actually, I’m not surprised. I remember, way back in 1984, visiting some friends in Salt Lake. They told me of a scam that had imploded, involving a man who lived in their neighborhood. The victims had gone one day to the scamster’s house and were circling it, rather like sharks. But the scamster was gone.

Utah’s just chock-full of these things and has been for decades.

max
September 18, 2012 at 7:38 am

You da man, droid!

Tonces
September 18, 2012 at 9:14 am

At last Droid!!!

Finally you are exposing one of the worst scammers in the “personal finance” niche: Robert Kiyosaki!

It is amazing how he subtle promoted his scammy frauducts through his books:

In his books talks about gold as protection against inflation… and just so happens he has a gol buy/sell parter… and let´s no forget gold buying related seminars!

He talks about real state investing and just so happens he has real estate seminars with Ken Mc. Elroy, probably another scammer.

Here you have some videos to ilustrate the scams going on in these seminars

It begins in a “depressing” hotel in Chicago and ends in Utah… as @Mirele indicated, no big surprise there.

I really am glad that Robert Kiyosaki is finally getting the Droid treatment. Apart from the fact that many financial and real estate experts (and not just the ones who are in competition with Kiyosaki, but real experts) say that his advice pretty much sucks, Kiyosaki’s whole marketing story — the Rich Dad/Poor Dad thing — has also been quite thoroughly exposed as just that: a story. So Jessie Conners is apparently following bravely in the scammer footsteps: Telling stories that are neither totally true nor totally consistent.

Not only does this piece provide a nice break from the Deutsch-bag series, but it demonstrates what can happen when ace scam-watchers attend a scaminar. Kudos to @SD, @Lanna, and @What the What for your work. I truly enjoyed this post.

andyhair
September 18, 2012 at 11:37 am

@Tonces, thanks for posting these videos! Scary stuff! Upon watching, it occurred to me how peaceful most people are even when they are victimized.

Towards the middle or end of that video, Kiyosaki mumbles stuff about how he doesn’t really run those things, he just lends them his name for credibility or something. To me, this suggests that the likely Kiyosaki apologist (if those exist) response would be to insist that it’s all better now. That Kiyosaki somehow learned his lesson.

But you can’t say Kiyosaki learned his lesson because we just got a Real Live status UPDATE as it were in the form of this here blog post that Salty just wrote.

As Salty said, the whole thing is just a high-pressure commercial… with rules. And, by the by, they are the kind of rules that you’d only really need if you wanted to kill any attempt at critical thinking and instead wanted to encourage zombie, lemming-like, emotional-BUY behavior.

Kiyosaki is a mother-f*cking bastard. He tells people the education system has failed them. And maybe it has–or if not it, then larger society as a whole. So… Kiyosaki tells people the education system has failed them. Then, without missing a beat, he exploits that lack of education to scam people out of their money.

And he’s been doing it so long that we largely forget to even be outraged about it.

——

On a not totally un-related note, I thought up a great tagline for Shurtleff:

Imagine him in a scene with many charts and graphs behind him depicting the cash flows of the various boil rooms, nutritional supplement providers, and evil MLM-ish groups running in and through his state.

Shurtleff looks to the camera and does a smarmy smile: “I liked them so much, I bought the company! All the companies.”

(11). Florida Attorney General Investigation (Marketing Activities). Investigation initiated in 2010 pursuant to the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act seeking information about our courses and seminars offered in Florida, including those offered under the Rich Dad brand. The Company is continuing to cooperate with the Office of the Attorney General in this matter.

Dr.Duke
September 18, 2012 at 3:20 pm

@Wyrd, On a not totally un-related note, I thought up a great tagline for Shurtleff:

Imagine him in a scene with many charts and graphs behind him depicting the cash flows of the various boil rooms, nutritional supplement providers, and evil MLM-ish groups running in and through his state.

Shurtleff looks to the camera and does a smarmy smile: “I liked them so much, I bought the company! All the companies.”

How about “They liked me so much, the companies bought me!”

Random stuff
September 19, 2012 at 6:53 am

@Wyrd, spot on. The most insidious element of the Scientology MO is similar: psychiatry / psychotherapy is evil. This will obviously attract people in a parlous mental state who will be vulnerable, and want to think that their problem is ‘invented’ by evil psychiatrists / psychotherapists. The truly malignant Scientologist will then ‘take’ these vulnerable people for everything they have.

Wretched Kiyosaki is taking a similar tack: telling less educated people that it was education that failed them, rather than any other reason (such as less intelligent, less studious, or…) – and people will like to hear this kinder ‘truth’. He is therefor able to attract people who are less educated, and more vulnerable, and then ‘take’ these people for everything they have.

*general note* this is not to say that education does not fail people, and that many intelligent capable people have had their potential damaged by a poor education. It is more to say that Kiyosaki, the Scientologists, and every level of the IM scamworld use different variants of the same MOs.

“Denton and Morris then proceed chronologically to outline the history of the city and its criminal creators. Among their most useful observations is that the popular term “Mafia” (and its Italian “family” connotations) obscures the far more insidious combinations of people involved in the gambling, skimming, and drug trafficking that are the foundation of Las Vegas. They believe these illegal activities exist because of a vast but loose criminal conspiracy among casino owners, politicians, law enforcement personnel, journalists, labor leaders, religious leaders (they explore, for example, the heavy Mormon investment in Vegas), and government agencies.”

Conflicted Pandas
September 18, 2012 at 11:10 am

Are they still selling real estate biz-ops? That’s a bit pre-recession; surely Poor Dads haven’t got much credit left any more :-/

It’s awesome to see Team Droid out in the field, but sad that those knob artists are still managing to fill up conference rooms.

Lanna
September 18, 2012 at 6:49 pm

@Conflicted Pandas,

They are saying that now is the time to buy because prices are low. Buy low, sell high. Except, unlike buying PepsiCo or Microsoft stock while the whole market’s low, you’ll have to pay taxes, insurance, and utilities on your investment. And keep the lawn mowed. Buyers are looking for deals and prices are flattish, so you can’t count on flipping properties. Employed people who defaulted on their mortgages still have money; they want to rent someplace classy. Businesses are contracting as more employees telecommute, and more entrepreneurs are working from home. If you buy a shoddy building in a shitty location at an unbelievably low price, you’re still getting a shoddy building in a shitty location. Good luck renting or flipping it.

There were several empty rows of chairs, and we suspected many of the people were plants. So I wouldn’t exactly say they’re filling ballrooms. And it was a small ballroom to begin with.

andyhair
September 18, 2012 at 11:31 am

It’s been asked 1000 times (999 times on this blog and once somewhere else), but it bears repeating: If these guys are so brilliant at making money (e.g. at real estate, SEO, affiliate offers, or whatever), then why are they wasting their time training their future competition? Why aren’t they just doing what brings them more riches?

Wyrd
September 18, 2012 at 12:08 pm

@andyhair,

If these guys are so brilliant at making money (e.g. at real estate, SEO, affiliate offers, or whatever), then why are they wasting their time training their future competition? Why aren’t they just doing what brings them more riches?

Standard apologist answer: Because, you know, like they just want to share the love and stuff. They want everyone to have the opportunity to be rich like them!

COUNTER: If those gurus are all into having everyone be rich, then how come they charge you money for the lessons?

Standard apologist answer: You’ve got to be willing to invest! These lessons were very hard for the gurus to learn, do you expect them to give them away for free? You’re just being negative!

———–

At that point, the apologist sounds so defensive and pitiful (to me) that I don’t see much sense in continuing the “debate”.

There’s a story in some comments from 2009 where @_cartman_ (or @carman or @Cartman, I forget) says he once tried to convince some folks on some other forum that some guy’s offer was a scam. Folks on the forum flamed @_cartman_. And a few of them even bought into the offer just to show him! But even after that didn’t work out for them, still they were angry at @_cartman_

———-

You can lead a horse to water. But separating someone from a deeply held belief is a lot harder than getting a horse to drink some water.

Even the scammers–who are arguably the experts at getting people to believe stupid things–don’t have anything close to a 100% success rate at getting people to believe things. And that’s even with the scammers having the advantage of trying to make people believe things that people universally wish were true or fear were true.

The sums bandied about in these videos are just astonishing. $45K? It would cost less to do a post-graduate course in marketing, if one were so inclined, at least in the UK it would.

I wonder if people realise that it’s possible to get a legit degree for what they’re shelling out :(

Wyrd
September 18, 2012 at 2:29 pm

@Conflicted Pandas,

re college courses: that’s another part of the con. In one of those videos linked in the article, and also as Salty mentions about the Scamworld article, they convince the marks that college is all bunk or something.

Of course, when I listen to some college commercials, I find myself somewhat inclined to agree with the idea that they’re scammy… but that’s mostly my cynicism talking. And anyway if someone doesn’t go to college it sure as hell does not follow that they should get “training” from d-bags like Jesse or Kiyosaki.

Head Honcho
September 18, 2012 at 3:27 pm

@Conflicted Pandas, They also play into people’s tendency to avoid work. College. Courses. Study. It all sounds like *work.* That plus “college is bunk, anyway” and they move in for the close.

They don’t need to convince *all* the people. Not even *most.* Not nearly. Just enough to make some steady sales.

Ann
September 18, 2012 at 8:14 pm

@Wyrd, hmmm. we haven’t been graced with _Cartman_’s presence for a while. He was definitely one of my favorite commenters from the beginning…back when I was trying to figure out what happened in Sedona and why.

Me
September 19, 2012 at 6:31 pm

@andyhair, because the legitimate idea is this: they teach you how to do it and then you go out and sell their stuff. The illegitimate way of using it is: you teach them false information and sign them up for more seminars.

First person to guess more about the 801-371-0755 phone number from the old whois up there wins free tickets to kiyosaki-riches…

…hint…starts with “P” and ends with “rosper”.

Wyrd
September 18, 2012 at 1:06 pm

@Jack,

So Jessie Conners can’t keep her “wealth” website up for more than a month or so at a time, yet she’s considered totally qualified to make you a Rich Dad? And in the end it’s just a lead Gen into the mouth of a Prosper boil room anyway. Damn that’s some tragi-comedy right there.

An interesting document. It takes a while to get through, but it has the morbid appeal of a well-written true crime report.

The man who’s written it comes across as a bit of an objectionable character, but whatever.

Kerry
September 20, 2012 at 10:37 am

@Conflicted Pandas,

Yeah, John T Reed has his “Not Recommended” list. He is good at pointing out the bullshit of Rea estate scam artists. It is, however, unsavory that he also sells his self-published books on the same site, and recommends the products of some of his friends. At the very least he doesn’t sell get-rich-quick stuff.

Dr Geek
September 18, 2012 at 4:44 pm

So. Fecking. Jealous.

A little bit of guerrilla action in the anti-scam war…great work!

Holy Sh-
September 18, 2012 at 5:24 pm

This was the crap I very nearly got sucked into about four years ago. Got the boiler room call from a guy who started by telling me that “Robert Allen himself wanted me to call you about this.” So right off the bat, I knew I was being lied to.

Funnily enough, I managed to provoke him into hanging up on me. I explained I didn’t relish deception and while what I MEANT was I didn’t think myself capable of pretending to be a big shot real estate investor when I’d never done an investment deal in my entire life, the guy got very defensive and asked if I was saying that HE was lying and then he told me in a rather condescending tone that the conversation was over.

It probably didn’t help that I knew people who had actually done real estate investment–landlords, mostly, given that the economy was starting to dive and houses were a lot harder to flip with the glut of foreclosure on the market–and I knew from what they’d said that it was not as easy as all that. Not that it couldn’t be done, but that the most you can expect is a steady living with more flexible hours than a desk job usually provides.

Doctor Mario
September 20, 2012 at 1:17 pm

@Holy Sh- ::

the most you can expect is a steady living with more flexible hours than a desk job usually provides.

Well said … I think this can pretty much describes the best case scenario for most of the scams peddled as “get rich quick” (or even “get rich, period.”)

It is hard & grueling work. There is risk. There is a steep & costly learning curve that chews up & spits out most newbies. Depending on where you are, there can be cut-throat, often unscruplous competition. I got into it learning from a couple of experienced veterans, and still to this day work as their close understudy. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine trying to go it alone, from scratch or otherwise (even if I was well capitalized with excellent credit to begin with).

To imagine one could just read some books, attend some “ra-ra” feel good seminars, then jump out in the world and start making even a livable wage as a private real estate investor / flipper – in this market especially – is ludicrous.

Anna
September 18, 2012 at 8:34 pm

Good job, Salty, Lanna and WhatTheWhat! Excellent job of documenting with just the right amount of heckling. I’m a bit surprised that no trolls have shown up yet. Go Salty and SaltyDroid Minion 2.0 project. Let me know if a minion project needs doing in my neck of the woods a bit NW of Chicago.

Anonymous
September 18, 2012 at 8:48 pm

So, Jessie told our group that she learned everything she knows about real estate investment at the very same “Rich Dad” seminar she was pushing on our group, yet in March 2011 she was doing something similar pushing expensive seminars for Armando Montelongo according to a complaint on Ripoff Report.

And here is a discussion on a forum for ladies and gents who enjoy designer purses complaining about Peppermint Park. For those who don’t want to click through (though I recommend it. There’s a woman on here who really goes to the matt & gets after the AG from her state & MN) here are some of the highlights. There are a full ten pages of posts in which some women describe:

(1) receiving fake handbags (prada & gucci, which, btw, can go for $1500 – $2500+ brand new. So even at 50% or 60% off that’s still a lot of money).

(2) being told “no refunds, only store credit” despite the fact that they returned the bags b/c they were fakes;

(3) lots of promises for returned calls and emails but never receiving them;

(4) given a “free months membership” only to find out that they needed to give 30 day cancellation notice and were therefore on the hook for at least one full months membership fees;

(5) being double charged for membership fees;

(6) being charged for membership fees despite having cancelled their membership.

(7) one member returned a bag b/c it was fake & then another person on the forum found out the place had sold her the bag the first woman had already returned! And the serial number for said bag was listed online as belonging to another bag.

(8) A few people complain that they sent back the fakes and got their credit card companies to fight the charges

Though my absolute favorite thing about all of it is that Peppermint Park was….wait for it…..recommended in O magazine! Oh Oprah…when will you and your people learn?

And lastly, here is a news paper article detailing a BBB investigation after receiving 40 complaints in 12 months of customers receiving designer knock offs that were advertised as the real deal.

I don’t point this out to go after just Jessie. Although she certainly deserves a timeout to think about what she’s done. What struck me was how there’s only one script for this kind of stuff. Rich Dad, Montelongo, IM/MMO, Tony Robbins, the crappy service, the membership fees they never stop charging you, …It’s the same four or five plays, all the time, over and over.

Also, my favorite thing about the “Rich Dad” info session…while we are standing there like dolts waiting to enter the room, I swear to God, the guy tells us that the hotel has a policy against solicitation so none of us better be soliciting there! US!!! The people there to attend the seminar!!! Oh Lordy.

Sorry if this is a terribly written bunch of word salad. I’ve been crazy busy today and just wanted to dash off some of this stuff before I forget.

What the what
September 18, 2012 at 8:49 pm

@,

Aaaaaand that was me.

What the what
September 18, 2012 at 9:31 pm

@, Holy crap me! Get it together!

8) above was supposed to explain that a few people returned bags they contended were fakes. The bags were shipped and required signature upon receipt at P Park. While the ladies’ credit card companies disputed the charges with P Park, P Park actually claimed the hand bags were never returned to them…yep, despite the fact there was apparently proof that they had signed for the bags…

Peppermint Park is also breaking rules at the University of Minnesota. U of M does not allow student groups associated with outside for-profits, but Peppermint Park has a registered student group – the Candy Girls. To join, students must attend a “‘casting call'” and be selected by the Candy Girls’ five student officers and Peppermint Park’s marketing director.

Candy Girls are expected to market Peppermint Park on U of M’s campus, and in exchange they get their memberships free – a $10 a month value! Minnesota’s minimum “training wage” is $4.90 an hour. If they’re marketing more than two hours a month, they’re working for free.

What the what
September 19, 2012 at 6:30 pm

@Lanna,

Ha! thanks for putting the link in. I don’t know what was going on with me there…point number 8 was supposed to say that people had sent back the purported fakes & required a signature upon receipt. In P Park’s defense/appeal to the credit card company assisting the customer in fighting the charges they had the nerve to claim they never received the merchandise.

RE: Candy Girls. That is just all around icky. I hope the University shuts it down. Doesn’t seem right for those ladies to do all that work for free membership which just gets them an extra 20% of stuff that might be a designer knock off.

Well, it is abundantly clear that there are some people out there with the mindset of: “I’m gonna get mine. Fuck you and yours.”

I’m glad you linked to that stuff. When the fake brand name purse angle was brought up, it reminded me that I had seen an FTC video about their efforts to stop the evil scourge of knock off products being sold as expensive name brand products… Well, I mean I guess it is bad and it is a scam and it does violate trust, etc. So… kudos FTC?

But tell me, FTC, do you really think a bunch of fake purses has the same kind of damaging impact on a person’s livlihood as a 4-5 figure per victim semi-MLM get rich quick scam?

So maybe Jessie Conners will be brought down for the fake purse stuff and then the Rich Dad Scam Network(tm) will have to find someone to replace her. (which will take about 50 seconds)

realestateguru
September 18, 2012 at 9:40 pm

@SD

It would be really cool if you could document and do a follow up on the entire funnel behind “frontend of a fraud funnel”.

I am sure if you gave them your email that they are going to follow up with you and try to get them into their back end bullshit programs.

Thanks for checking this out, I always wondered what their bullshit free seminar was pitching when I see their display ads on Yahoo.

Lanna
September 19, 2012 at 12:40 am

@realestateguru,

As we’ve discussed before on this site, you have to buy the little stuff before they approach you with the big stuff. This is one part marketing savvy and three parts cult tactics. The people who’ve already interacted with your brand are more likely to buy, but it’s the indoctrination and sunk cost fallacy and the helpful helping you to raise your credit limit that really prepare us sheeple to fork over the up to $45,000 for Rich Dad University.

Documented by journalists and alluded to in Tigrent’s own SEC filings, these are the steps the company has been using since at least 1998 – years before they licensed Rich Dad in 2006:

We know that for one reason or another you decided not to move forward with your training at that time. Maybe it was an inconvenient location, a time commitment, or maybe it was the cost.

No journey of real value can be completed in a single step. Keep your momentum going and take your knowledge and skill to the next level!

Join us for three information-packed webinars where you will be introduced to one of the greatest wealth creation tools of all time – real estate. You’ll receive step-by-step instructions for a variety of proven real estate strategies that can generate wealth in every part of the country in any market condition. And best of all, you’ll discover the secret to building your real estate portfolio using other people’s money.

You are going to discover the art of finding deals that have profit built in from the very start as you explore a wealth of opportunities from foreclosures to lease options – and much more!

Thank You for Attending

6 Hours of Live, Instructor-Led, Online TrainingCourse ManualGuide to Real Estate InvestingOver 300 pages filled with a multitude of investing techniques to help you with the next steps on the path to financial freedom through real estate investing.The Philosophy of Cash FlowDownload nearly 100 pages to help you put into practice the well-known philosophies of Robert Kiyosaki.Access to Rich Dad’s Jump StartGain access to invaluable tools and resources not available to the general public – calculators, forms, manuals, and tools to help you create your personal financial statement.

Even if you’ve never owned a single piece of property before, your instructor will walk you through all of this powerful information giving you detailed, easy-to-follow instructions that can help you to “mind your business” into wealth and freedom!

This email is sent because you registered for a workshop via the web, phone or attended an event. To ensure that you continue to receive these emails, please add “customerservice@richdadeducation.com” to your address book or safe sender list. Click Here to Unsubscribe. If you have any questions, please contact Student Services at 1-800-978-8068, or via mail at: Rich Dad Education, 4255 Lake Park Blvd. Suite 300, Salt Lake City, UT 84120.

pigs trotters
September 19, 2012 at 2:01 am

@Lanna,

And even if you manage to resist buying anything from the original funnel that has your contact details, those details will be endlessly sold on for years to come to other scammers, boiler rooms and chancers desperate to try their luck at squeezing a buck from you.

They know that everyone hits vulnerable points in their lives when they might be more receptive to some flavour or variation of this tripe.
The only thing that never changes is that it is always tripe.

Wyrd
September 19, 2012 at 9:00 am

@pigs trotters,

Good point. It’s like once you let those demon-sirens in, then just keep on whispering in the background for years and years. Pretty effed up, actually.

Lanna
October 5, 2012 at 12:53 am

@realestateguru,

Let me just say that I signed up for everything when I registered for the Rich Dad event, so I’m just telling you what I’m getting. There’s no CAN-SPAM violations here.

I’m trying to play devil’s advocate here. I signed up for a real estate investing event, so I have money I want to invest. Except Jessie said we don’t need money because we’ll learn how to get a commercial loan with no money down. Back to the money, OK I guess if I decide owning my own real estate is too much hassle, I might buy some stocks of real estate companies. But forex? How do I go from real estate to forex? The only pathway I see is the get-rich-quick pathway.

Sugarcandymountain
September 19, 2012 at 12:56 am

This had me choking on my cornflakes with laughter.

Kudos to the Droid for taking pictures despite the pleading of these shitbags, particularly the bonus picture.

I dunno, my post-school report card does not have enough moniez on it. Don’t show Mum and Dad. Maybe I need to keep faking it till I make it (and then keep faking it:

Lanna
September 28, 2012 at 9:32 pm

@Sugarcandymountain,

Don’t judge me, but tonight on America’s Next Top Model, Mike Ruiz was the photographer for the weekly photo shoot. He has an impressive client list. I suppose Peppermint Park was a paying gig, but why did he agree to be videoed slumming it?

What the what
September 29, 2012 at 9:16 am

@Lanna,

He might have been involved with a paying gig with Peppermint Park but he is also working with them for charity. (Although to me it seems P Park is using him to seem like they do charity, but that’s just my opinion).

With regard to the $50 t shirts, the imagery of the shirt is nice and, come on, who doesn’t love Ru Paul? Unfortunately, P Park only describes the charitable donation as:

” Mike is using his celebrity status to raise money for AFC through his booming new clothing line: MR Mike Ruiz. With every T-shirt purchase, Mike is donating profits to AFC.”

I don’t know if that’s just lazy on P Park’s part or whether Mr. Ruiz likes to keep that statement vague. No clue how much of the profit goes to charity. For a $50 t shirt, there should be a whole lot of profit going on there. I haven’t found anything online anywhere that says how much profit goes to the charity. (I should point out that a basic search for Mr. Ruiz brings up a long history of support for the LGBTQIA community that, if even 50% as good as it seems, is truly incredible. So, I am hoping in his case that he just doesn’t know what P Park is up to with their bad business practices.)

And P Park’s charitable contribution….they sell the shirts from their site….Oh, and they offer a “free” month membership. Yeah…that one free month where the women at @SD’s favorite new purse forum** say that it’s not really free because you need to give 30 days notice of cancellation. So your “free month” will turn into a paid second month unless you cancel the same day your free membership starts. And that’s assuming you don’t end up like those on the purse forum who kept getting charged and had to keep canceling their account for four or five months until the “cancelation” took.

…oh, yeah, those women’s shelters….wherever they are.

Oh, so much charity!

**Hope you at least found the purse forum good reading @SD. And, maybe if you are ever in the market for a designer gentledroid’s carry-all, you now have a good resource to make sure it’s the real deal.

Anon
June 26, 2013 at 12:02 pm

@What the what,

They never gave a cent to any charity. Never supported any women’s shelters, and never made any other sort of donations.

Anfisa
September 19, 2012 at 5:59 am

Wow, what a great experience, you guys! :-D
So the GURU didn’t even show up? Was he announced in the promo materials?
(So nasty, wouldn’t touch with a don’t-know-how-long pole… even the photographer, they found the fakest one out there…talk about the law of attraction!)

Wyrd
September 19, 2012 at 9:07 am

@Anfisa,

I don’t think it was announced that he would be there. This particular Rich Dad type operation has been going on for a while. And, apparently, the company that does the “Rich Dad” (tm–but who really cares?) training had been doing, uh, “wealth coaching” or whatever you call it before Kiyosaki even came along. Then, after he sleazed his way into some pseudo-fake-fake stardom, they glommed onto each other.

@Tonces linked to an expose series done by the CBC that lays it all out. AFIK, there’s no video of @Salty’s, @Lanna’s, and @What the What’s trip to the Chicago event, but this video from a totally different one in 2010 is probably a lot similar… except that the pitch comes on a lot more fiercely and maybe the audience doesn’t have as many shills. Or maybe that’s just the CBC’s editing. Whatever the case, check it just a little ways up from this comment here:

When the FTC investigates marketing materials, they consider whether a reasonable person would draw this or that conclusion from what’s presented. So, what would a reasonable person think about the Rich Dad materials?

For the free event we attended, this is toward the top of the registration page:

At the free event, Jessie never mentioned whether Kiyosaki would be at the three-day event or not. I did overhear one woman ask the people taking forms and credit cards. I didn’t hear the specific response, but she turned right around and left.

So, as a reasonable person, would you believe, from the photos and videos of Kiyosaki and his book – and the fact that the training uses similar branding to his book – that he would be there? Or would you read the footnote?

Wyrd
September 22, 2012 at 1:24 am

@Lanna,

I dunno. In this matter, I can’t really be considered to be a “reasonable person” kinda like how I wouldn’t have been a viable choice for juror at James Ray’s trial. My bias is too extreme. (Yes, I know that wasn’t exactly what the FTC meant when they wrote “reasonable person”.)

But that “reasonable person” thing… I’m gonna be thinking on that one for a long time. That sort of standard makes sense when you’re dealing with straight-forward, non-mind-screw scams. But for dealing with situations where everything that happens is expressly designed to make you not be reasonable, but instead highly emotional and suggestable… well, I’m not sure the FTC’s standard is going to work.

Back to your original question: with a lot of effort, I think I can sort of imagine how Alt-Universe @Wyrd would react to that sort of treatment. i.e. you show up, but then Kiyosaki isn’t there, but then that’s mentioned in the fine print.

I would feel like I’d been scammed kind of. The trouble is, if I didn’t know about the Sick Machine, if I’d never been to Salty droid, if I didn’t already perceive Kiyosaki to be a hemorrhaging f*ck-wad, I’d probably let it go, and just rationalize it like “hey, Kiyosaki’s a busy man.”

In our world that is riddled with scams all through and through, we get so used to this sort of misrepresentation that it gets to seeming normal or ok.

Just thinking
September 19, 2012 at 7:09 am

@SD / @Lana / @What the what –

“Approximately thirty people bolted from their seats in creepy unison without a moment’s hesitation :: it was exceedingly unnatural and surprising … and the stench of fake significantly thickened.”

And – to a man / woman the implication is that they were the grifters ‘shills’ ‘plants’ or ‘stooges’.

How many people were in the room altogether, or what do you estimate were the number of ‘marks’ – including your three noble selves?

What I find astonishing is the level of conspiracy. It starts to sound like Robert Redford and ‘The Sting’ – except not. There is no glamour in being a shitty bit part to shittier scammers. I was just wondering how many of the ‘plants’ were paid a small fee or were on commission – or where they came from. Not central casting I guess…

Lanna
September 19, 2012 at 9:35 am

7@Just thinking,I estimated 108 at start and 144 at end. Maybe 30 who got up so fast were plants. Someone on another blog suggested they were homeless people because they looked rough. Ours didn’t look too rough IMHO. Except the lady who wore a helmet, scribbled furiously and then scampered out halfway through. Anyway, maybe temps. Maybe depends where you go.Temp in downtown Chi. Day laborers in Dallas. Homeless in LA.

Just thinking
September 19, 2012 at 9:58 am

@Lanna, thanks. Reminds me of the only time I went to an ‘opportunities’ seminar – happened to be on property – dragged by a girlfriend who was worryingly enthusiastic. There were a whole load of plants, and tiers in the pyramid, and not too easy to spot who were the genuine prospects. I ran as soon as I could.

Great post. It’s nice to see the droid on the field… Really enjoyed the story… Well documented.

Jim
September 19, 2012 at 3:30 pm

Sounds like Jessie has nothing to sell but stale air.
I recently read that PayPal is now shutting down many individuals who are selling “Get Rich” products.

It may be my imagination, but it seems as though the desperation of the snake-oil marketers is starting to show noticeably. The reality of what’s happening in the real world makes the dream world they’re promoting seem ridiculously fake.

Darkness in the real world usually makes the dream world an easier sell.

Me
September 19, 2012 at 6:03 pm

Nice ass.. in the end.. ;-)

Me
September 19, 2012 at 8:13 pm

I never liked Roberts book. I’ve always felt it was thin on real knowledge and just full of fluff. A book that I liked though was “Millionaire Fastlane” by Mj Demarco.

But when I had both books in my book shelf a friend asked me if she could borrow Roberts book and then once she read it I said “read the fastlane, it is so much better” she started reading it but then told me she didn’t like it.

That’s the drama of life, I guess – the really good books simply don’t have the APPEAL of bullshit make-money-easy crap that makes Kiosaki a bestselling author. That’s just the truth of life – and since everyone wants to survive in this world and make a living, some people choose to tap into the desire of the masses to consume bullshit. That’s just the way it is.

Snake_Troll
September 19, 2012 at 10:39 pm

Salty Droid. You fucking rock. Seriously.

Exposing such ponzi schemes should be an EVERYDAY par of the American landscape, but, it’s not….

What is MORE sickening is seeing self help guru’s show up at legitimate trade show in LEGITIMATE professions..

SETH GODIN is a wonderful example. He’s, now, working with people in the head of the photography industry to promote his shit to a wider audience & market to an even larger DESPERATE crowd.

Quit drink the fucking Kool-aid, people. Really. That would be helpful!

Matt
September 20, 2012 at 12:31 am

@Snake_Troll,

I’m still a little on the fence about Seth Godin, not that his associations with some of the worst figures called out on this blog help him any… mostly because he has a special knack for unpeeling the marketing onion to reveal the rotten festering core within. His “it’s all marketing” post regarding the “big salary myth” is one example. It’s fascinating stuff, mostly pretty obvious when you really think about it… and always best taken in measured doses, unless you want to start feeling suicidal. That’s why I unsubscribed from his blog about a year ago, that and the fact that, just like all ‘marketing’ blogs, the precious few nuggets of useful information it provides are all but lost in an ocean of hand-wavy, head in the clouds fluff.

I wish Seth Godin was on a fence :: whatever that means … and I’m sure it means something bad.

If you want to consider yourself a “thought leader” :: and you make unwise choices about your associations and that unwiseness comes to light … the you fucking owe society a name naming mea culpa.

… either that or the fence.

Anonymous
September 20, 2012 at 10:37 pm

@SD,

“Seth Godin on a Fence”…sounds like one of those weird European ‘art’ films they used to screen on late night TV here.

Conflicted Pandas
October 5, 2012 at 2:39 am

@SD,

Ooh, I know what that thing about “Seth Godin on a fence” reminded me of.

There was a bit in Umberto Eco’s “Name of the Rose” where William of Baskerville says that, if all the pieces of the Holy Cross he’s seen being displayed/sold around the world were the real thing, the church would have to accept that Jesus had actually been nailed not to a cross, but to a fence.

But most of the room signed up,(actors? I don’t know) and an associate of mine and his family signed up and went all through the b.s. mentoring qualification process by submitting your social, credit report and financial statement (listing assets) before they closed on the $20K mentoring package..

Tried to talk them out of it, but was having flashbacks of trying to talk a seasoned stripper off the pole and back to community college…..

In both cases I’ve learned to sit back and enjoy the show…they are going to do what they want to do…

Come on salty…no hate for the thick headed suckers?

Random stuff
September 20, 2012 at 4:11 am

@Deserve it….., it is fortunate that you don’t fall for the con. But believe me, there is a con, waiting for you around the corner, and it will take you good and proper. Or perhaps not. You sound superior or clever, and you hate “thick headed suckers”, so perhaps you will always avoid the con…

Being entertained by the show is part of what this site is about – and to be clear – the ‘show’ is not being entertained by grifters, it is being entertained by grifters meeting their come uppance, big time.

But this site is mostly about anger against henious unpleasant people who, along with being nasty liars, rip off vulnerable people.

Read the site a bit more, or just go away. Every and any person can be a victim of a con – except you. Well done.

Anonymous
September 20, 2012 at 5:15 am

@Random stuff,

First you’re sweet:
“You sound superior or clever, and you hate “thick headed suckers”, so perhaps you will always avoid the con…”

Then you’re sour: “Read the site a bit more, or just go away.”

Then you’re sweet again (although your wording is a bit tricky):

“Every and any person can be a victim of a con – except you. Well done.”

Was that the con “around the corner” you warned me about?

Random stuff
September 20, 2012 at 7:56 am

@, Deserve it… I cannot tell what is around the corner – for you, me, or anyone else. That’s what corners are about. Unless of course it is a well trodden path. If you find my wording tricky – then how do you avoid con artists? Believe me – their wording is trickier – or not?

There. That’s all the mocking of the victims you’re going to get here.

Because the take away message isn’t supposed to be “gee those people were dumb!” The take away message is that 1) there are a lot of icky, nasty scammers out there and 2) if you think it can’t happen to you, then it’s probably only matter of time before it happens to you. Believing that you are not conn-able is a great way to set yourself up for being conned.

Sure you wouldn’t fall for the specific con that these people fell for, but that doesn’t mean you won’t fall for some other con at some other time. {Hint: they get you when you’re vulnerable.}

In closing, this is a more complete passage from which I took the earlier quote

There was lots of :: “I can’t believe people are this idiotic” type shit … and I’m hoping I can sort that out with one word …

Indoctrination.

These people aren’t idiots {mostly} … and they don’t deserve to lose any cents. They’ve just been intentionally lied to and manipulated for so long that they are no longer capable of recognizing the truth. It’s fucking sad :: and very disturbing … and it’s not hard to accomplish.

As Salty said, it’s not hard to accomplish. As an example, there’s this ridiculous belief that you have that, for some reason, if a person falls for a con, then that means they deserved it.

No one actually deserves to be lied to, grossly manipulated, and/or tricked into giving their money, body, and/or life to some fucking no-souled, manipulative, scum-bag scammer. The point that, from your perspective, or my perspective, the victim might look to be naive is irrelevant.

No one “@Deserve it…..”

Random stuff
September 20, 2012 at 10:12 am

@Wyrd, you have my 100% vote.

Anonymous
September 20, 2012 at 12:43 pm

@Wyrd, Random Stuff…

Ok…I get it….We all have our blind spots…No I don’t think people deserve it, but this particular con was so obvious to me…after some reflection…

I agree with you 100%. I see how my initial message could be perceived as arrogant. Wasn’t my intention. In fact, this site builds a very strong case against the typical “buyer beware argument,” by illustrating how these scammers design a business around people’s vulnerabilities i.e. sudden loss of job, marriage, health …. Yes that is evil.. It also helped me realize I wasn’t going crazy after spending hours in a room going through Frank Kern’s “modules” & coming out like a dazed zombie bc “I wasn’t taking massive action.” It wasn’t until I found this site that I realized I was not crazy…and didn’t need to work on my “mindset again.”

The Rich Dad example was just particularly frustrating bc I thought I did a good job gently pointing out the “hype” of this travelling circus to my associates and how giving strangers all of your personal/financial info may not be wise…something I did not have the luxury of with Frank Kern & crew…….but as I type this I see we can all be hypnotized..

Wyrd
September 20, 2012 at 1:21 pm

@,

Thanks for writing that. Now, for my part, I fell for the general “make money online” meme via two scammers you’ve never heard of named Sterling and Jay. They also talked of “take massive action”, etc. I never gave them any money, so in that sense, they didn’t totally get me. But they did get me the stupid mindset of MMO.

And then there was Naomi Dunford{link} and her Ittybiz. That’s how I found saltydroid, in fact–via the “Spider shit-storm”.

The cognitive dissonance hurt my brain some. But luckily, as I was not yet financially invested in the Unicorns, and since I really do like evidence and facts far more than random accusations and pie in the sky dreams, I was able to “deprogram” over the course of several months.

Also, all that stuff hadn’t taken over my whole life. It had just taken over chunks of my limited spare time.

But that wasn’t even the only time I ever fell for a con of some kind. That’s just the only time it was Internet related. If I go on, I’ll sound both stupider and vain at the same time. And long posts are boring. So, moving on…

The Rich Dad example was just particularly frustrating bc I thought I did a good job gently pointing out the “hype” of this travelling circus to my associates and how giving strangers all of your personal/financial info may not be wise

It was good of you to try and help them. And there was always the slight chance that it could have worked.

IMHO, the thing that is the most insidious about this kind of con is how deeply it worms its way into the psyche of the conned. It’s scary. It’s cult{link}-like.

And I’ve had to sit by and watch as a family I know goes down the Herbal Life MLM road. I haven’t tried to intervene. But mostly only because I don’t really know what to say or do.

I think we need to have greater education about the dangers of scams.

—
Furry cows moo and decompress.

NateRoma (formerly deserved)
September 20, 2012 at 1:53 pm

@Wyrd,

Sorry to hear about your family member. The pull is strong.

Like you, I have hardly spent money on these scams, and never gave frank kern a dime, but still mentally…poisonous…Creepy how all these people are linked together. Naomi, Frank, Tony Robbins..and to an extent Oprah…imho..

But that wasn’t even the only time I ever fell for a con of some kind. That’s just the only time it was Internet related. If I go on, I’ll sound both stupider and vain at the same time.

Thanks for saying that.I didn’t want to admit that. Honestly, my 10 year reflection brought in a flood of memories of things I am just recently “waking up to.” Lots of things to make me feel foolish.

Started out just wanting to improve myself after losing a prized job, depressed, I saw Rich Dad on Oprah, which led, to Prepaid Legal to InfoProducts online…which tie into cults like TheISAExperience…(escaped in the middle of day 2 brainwashing..)….It really started with one poisonous idea received in while in college: “Smart people never work hard for money. Only dumb people actually do real work.” So foolish.

Would definitely be interested to know what helped you deprogram.

Recently I have focused on learning a real trade…car repair at community college. Incredibly rewarding. I never would have imagined that the sweat acquired from fixing something people actually need would be so therapeutic..

Wyrd
September 20, 2012 at 10:31 pm

@NateRoma (formerly deserved),

Sorry to hear about your family member. The pull is strong.

Yeah, it sucks. But just to be clear, when I wrote “a family” I didn’t accidentally leave out a word. There’s this family at the church I go to where all of the members of their family are friends with all of the members of my family. At least pre-Herbalife that is. Now it seems that Herbalife is all they have time for. To be sure, I think it’s mostly the mom and dad or maybe just the mom that are the most active in selling it now, but initially it was the teenage daughters that had “success” selling some shakes to people.

Why would someone sell Herbalife? The standard reason. It’s like this: previously the mom and the dad had good jobs. Then, through no fault of his own, when the economy was crashing, the dad lost his good job. This family then decided to purchase, via good ol’ debt/loans, a jewelry store from some other church friends. They ran that store for maybe a year before they had to sell the store or something to cut their losses. … And it just so happened, while that was crumbling around them, that there was an Herbalife distributor just across the street in a brick-and-mortar location. Yes, believe it or not, Herbalife has those. It’s just that for various reasons, some of which maybe legit, but most of which most certainly not legit, Herbalife locations never have the name on the store.

And there’s some other goofy thing like, you’re never really a customer of the Herbalife store, but instead it’s not a store, it’s a club…. and once you’re a member then you can buy shakes? ? or something… I dunno… The convoluted logic of MLMs makes my head explode if I think about it too hard.

So those folks found Herbalife maybe a month or two after I found saltydroid.info. And boy, wasn’t that an interesting time.

Dave Ramsey says MLMs are Ok. (Dave Ramsey also says Robert Kiyosaki is ok. But I already knew Kiyosaki was a d-bag. I let Dave’s not-hatred of Kiyosaki go. I shouldn’t have.) So I supported my wife’s initial joining of the Herbalife cult. I’m thankful that after the usual infatuation and product buying period, my wife lost interest in it.

At the same time that, that was going on, saltydroid.info showed me a lot more of Scamworld than I had previously realized existed. But paradoxically, I was briefly drawn in a bit deeper, but in a different direction from before.

I didn’t yet have a clue about “affiliate marketing” at the time. I mean–I knew it was ad links you put on people’s sites and you get commissions off of clicks, but that’s all. I found out about Andrew Hansen and “acquired” a copy of his “Unstoppable Affiliate” “training”. (God, the names they give these things.)

To be sure, there is certainly information in the videos. Information about how to get into the world of SEO and rating for particular keywords and how to be an affiliate marketer. And Aaron even says stuff like “I’d avoid clickbank if I were you” and “Warrior Forum probably isn’t a good place to go” (note–those are not direct word-for-word quotes).

But you know, I never even got all the way through the series. When I first started watching them, there was a part of me right there with Salty, and there was still another part of me clinging to the burning sinking ship unicorn-dream-idea that “you can make money online.”

The videos… What I’m saying is that Aaron is more honest / less scammy than, e.g. Frank Kerns, Mike Dillard, et. al. But “less” still isn’t the same as “not scammy at all”. His sales pitch for the video is hella goofy. It’s of the style of “hey, check out this huge check I got .. check out this other huge check I got from a successful site .. ok, then here’s how I lost it all this one year .. but now I’ve learned my lessons yadda yadda .. buy my thing for $97 and you can end up on this beach just like me!”

The over-the-top ending was so lame. It felt so forced. It’s as if he felt compelled to add it on because he knew that if he didn’t he’d lose at least half of his target audience because that audience had been “trained” as Jeff Walker would say to expect it.

The videos… The videos taught me some words. They showed me there was a whole bunch of websites and stuff going on on the Internet that I knew nothing of. A couple of the videos also had some voice-over at the start explaining that, yes, this video is a repeat from some other “info product” that you may have already bought from Aaron.

Because Aaron was less scammy than others, as my brain processed them slowly over time, I could see, finally, the obvious truth:

There is no easy way to “make money” online. In fact, that phrase: MAKE MONEY ought to be a dead give-away.

In life, you’re not supposed to focus on “making money” unless perhaps you happen to be working for the mint. In all other instances, you’re supposed to do stuff (i.e. provide a good or service) then get paid for said work performed.

Authors might get royalties from book sales, but “passive stream of income” the way Sterling and Jay and MMO scamers use the phrase is yet another f*cking Unicorn. It’s a myth because in the real world of crazy messiness, the website that you set up two years ago that was going strong might at any time get “blown up” like the proverbial tower struck by lightning: could be a Google update, could be a big Mega Corp that suddenly decided your niche looked tasty, or it could simply be a fickle change in people’s habits.

So… when Salty says “you can’t make money online” he’s not wrong. He’s right because, more generally, you can’t really just “make money” be that online or otherwise. You have to f*cking earn it. (Except I haven’t figured out if that rule applies to the Super Rich yet. But we can probably save class warfare discussions for some other blog.)

——————-

You also asked about deprogramming:
The main thing that helped me was reading lots of saltydroid.info–the comments actually more than the articles. You read all these different voices from all these different people and it starts to become clear.

I could also recommend something some self-acknowledged scammer said in an FTC anti-scam video about how to handle being solicited for “business opportunities” over the phone: “Fast `nos’ and slow `yess'”

And then, of course, there’s always ye olde critical thinking skills. But I had those already before I ever listened to an Internet Business Mastery podcast, and I still got pulled into the Unicorn dream.

—
Furry cows moo and decompress.

NateRoma
September 21, 2012 at 1:16 am

@Wyrd,

Ok, glad is was not your immediate family, but sucks that MLM’s still infect your community. MLM is a disease. I don’t hate a lot of things, but I F@#$k’n hate MLM’s….

Found this quote on MLM’s and community/church etc

The Aftermath

One can’t help but wish that the “neighborhood” could be like it once was. But an MLM storm has blown through, ruining valuable relationships with no regret or conscience.
What goes unnoticed to the MLMer is that when the neighborhood is turned into a marketplace, something precious is lost… which is not easily regained…..the reflective reader would do well to think twice about the value of friends, family, community, and church fellowship before joining or continuing in an MLM.

reading lots of saltydroid.info–the comments actually more than the articles.

Thanks. I’ll give this a shot. This site has been great for getting perspective. The crazy thing about the IM world is the bubble they wrap you in. SD popped up when I was looking for Kern scam, but most were sites debunking his scammy ways…how do you find sanity when it seems like “everyone” is confirming how great these d bags are?

Going offline has been the best thing. Mowing my yard, learning to paint and repair cars has been one of the best decisions. No hype. I buy It broken, fix it, then sell it for fair price. No hype, no manipulative sales letters. No dreams of infiltrating forums with my Mass Control Launch plan with JV partners who are equally creepy….

Just a normal human being again…

Conflicted Pandas
October 5, 2012 at 2:11 am

@Wyrd,

Goodness, Sterling and Jay, I forgot about them! They had one month’s worth of “training program” fees out of me, through a recommendation by Patt Flynn. Sigh and cringe.

@Wyrd,
I heard of those two turd munchers, Stirling and Jay. I think I saw their free videos. Wow…that was a while back.
Then again, I do look at some of these scammy people sometimes, it might be a sickness I have, but I kind of find it amusing to see what scammy tactics they use. One of the scariest experiences of seeing SCAM was going to a church in central London. Really freaky and badly done NLP stuff, yet the large indoctrinated crowd was lapping it up.

If I was gonna try and talk a stripper off a pole :: I’d go with “gently” … because stripping is a legal and decent paying job. My arguments would have to be based on my personal morality :: and maybe my ideas about civics … inherently subjective stuff. Better be nice cause maybe I’m totally wrong.

The sick machine talks to people’s insecurities. Once they’ve found yours :: then you stop hearing their words {usually super stupid words} … and you start just hearing the sound of {the often justifiable because life sucks} fear and loathing echoing around inside your head. Your friends and family are trying to talk you out of it “gently” … but they’re talking to your reason not your cynically induced fear spiral. They’re trying to be fair minded … not to manipulatively press every one of your buttons. So it’s usually no contest.

Sometimes you just need a swift kick in the nuts.

I would not have given such an enlightened answer in 2008 though … that’s 4 shizzle. My first thought on stumbling upon Internet Marketing was … “zero people would fall for this stupid as shit … shit in a box … morons! … lol.”

Just about as wrong as I’ve ever been about something.

Like the @Whatthewhat on my left at this event for instance … she used to be a lawyer. She stacks with the twenty other lawyers I’ve met writing this thing :: and the people from every other possible profession and background … all sucked into something that seems laughably stupid once you’ve escaped its clutches. Her story also illustrates why it’s always worth it to take a firm stand with a friend who’s being ensnared … sometimes it will work.

So yeah :: no hate for the all of us who are thickheads.

NateRoma
September 20, 2012 at 3:44 pm

@SD,

When I stumbled on your site a year ago, I found it entertaining. Now it is a bit terrifying. Took a while for the depth of what this site represents to sink in. (still sinking in)

At first glance, I saw a witty, at times foul Consumer Report about “incidents” of people getting scammed.

Now I’m processing it as a description of a world of scams & illusions. Different names and details, but all based on same evil. Many of whom are connected.

Not a fun realization if you’ve been calling this place “home” for several years.

Anna
September 20, 2012 at 8:50 pm

@Deserve it….., I think you’ve probably had enough responses about this, but it’s a lot easier to fall for a con, financial or otherwise when you are vulnerable in a way to which the con is tailored. Thinking clearly all the time, we’d all see through the con. Trouble is, life is more complicated than that.

NateRoma (formerly deserved)
September 20, 2012 at 10:26 pm

@Anna,

Yes I’ve seen the error in my thinking. We all have hot buttons and points of weakness…seems like price of trusting people is occassionally being exposed to predators…

“A corporation is merely a legal document that creates a legal body without a soul.”

LOL, I gots one ‘a doze!

Wyrd
October 14, 2012 at 8:04 pm

@Lanna,

One of the fascinating things about Kiyosaki is he’s one of those that sometimes says True Things somewhere inside of all the meaningless Unicorn-dream hype-fest.

What many people don’t know is that a corporation is not really a thing. A corporation is merely a file folder with some legal documents in it, sitting in some attorney’s office and registered with a state government agency. It’s not a big building or a factory or a group of people. A corporation is merely a legal document that creates a legal body without a soul.

Yep. As it happens, I did know that already. It seems to me that’s a very strong argument for it (a corporation) to not have the same free speech rights as a person.

Using a corporation, the wealth of the rich is once again protected. The protection is not just from Mother Nature’s disasters, but from the desperate Robin Hoods trying to steal the riches of the wealthy.

Yeah. But Robin Hood was the good guy. Of course, in your particular predicament, Kiyosaki, I’m thinking the entity suing you (excuse me–your corporation) isn’t exactly an innocent Robin Hood. But whatever.

It seems like a pretty clever scheme. You’ve got this legal fiction that can get sued into oblivion, while you sit by with your cash. And, if that corporation is incredibly successful with lots of cash, then it can go and buy elections. Good times!

@SD, et. al., am I oversimplifying? I am probably oversimplifying. It’s generally not a good idea to follow in the thought-steps of Kiyosaki or any other scammer. Their sophism is so intense that it becomes hard to not get caught up in it.

Please tell me where I’m messing up in my reasoning, ’cause for a long time it has looked to me like corporations are a great way to get away with doing lots of Bad Stuff. The Super PAC thing is just like gravy.
—
Furry cows moo and decompress.

pigd trotters
October 15, 2012 at 1:27 am

@Wyrd,

You’re over-simplifying, but have nailed the bare bones as ‘corporations are a great way to get away with doing lots of Bad Stuff.’ and there is precious little redress.

pigs trotters
October 15, 2012 at 1:52 am

@Wyrd,

This sophistry is the same brand that James Ray attempted in his first line of defence. He, the man with agency, was not responsible for killing his customers, it was the coporation, JR International, that should be in the dock if someone had to be.

pigs trotters
October 15, 2012 at 3:25 am

@Wyrd,

‘but from the desperate Robin Hoods trying to steal the riches of the wealthy.’

Robin Hood was a heavily mythologised folk hero, but he represented a popular blowback from the common people who were being scammed and squeezed into penury by heavy taxes to pay for wars in the middle east and to prop up the wealthy and maintain the status quo.

No change there then.

The question to ask is how did the wealthy first aquire the riches that the various Robin Hoods then tried to steal some small portion back?

Wyrd
October 15, 2012 at 9:43 am

@pig trotters,

This sophistry is the same brand that James Ray attempted in his first line of defence. He, the man with agency, was not responsible for killing his customers, it was the coporation, JR International, that should be in the dock if someone had to be.

That argument of J. Ray’s sounds stupid on the face of it to me. But then I think of how, if the situation had been different, if James Ray hadn’t been the one in there with them how things might have gone differently. In that case, it would be so easy for J. Ray to put blame somewhere else and get away without a single charge sticking.

…

The question to ask is how did the wealthy first aquire the riches that the various Robin Hoods then tried to steal some small portion back?

Many conservatives and libertarians and scammers like Kiyosaki will tell you that the rich earned their riches through blood, sweat, and tears. And liberals and conspiracy theorists tend to say that it’s all a rigged game that the rich try to make more rigged every chance they get.

I think, as per usual, now that I’ve had more sleep, it’s clear that these different extreme viewpoints I just mentioned all have pieces of truth in them.

But I’ve been hit with so many jarringly different points of view on the topic of “The Rich” over the years, each one seeming every bit as convincing as the last, that it’s become very difficult for me to make sense of it any more.

As regards the problem of money and power, all I can be sure of at the moment is that for every complex problem there’s an answer that’s simple, obvious and wrong.

Dr Geek
October 16, 2012 at 10:24 am

@Wyrd,

I’d humbly submit SuperPACs are more Garmonbozia than Gravy, but you’re on the right lines fo’ sho’ …

Lanna
October 16, 2012 at 5:16 pm

@Wyrd,

I own a corporation, so obviously I’m pro-corporation. I’m glad to know my savings and my home are protected from my business fuck-ups. I’m glad that if I bought 100 shares of GM stock today, I couldn’t lose more than the $2,479 I invested; the UAW couldn’t come knock on my door and demand pension money for their thousands of retirees. I’m glad that if parents put cash or real estate into a trust to provide for their special needs child after they’re gone, the parents’ creditors can’t touch that trust. “Forgotten” Apple co-founder Ron Wayne has said that the risk of an unincorporated company was one of the reasons he left Apple 12 days in.

I do think corporations’ influence over the governments in the U.S. needs to be reined in. I’m not sure the best way to do that. I think corporate entities should have a voice, as they are regulated by the governments, but obviously that voice should not outweigh the citizenry.

A corporation doesn’t provide impenetrable immunity. Readers here have seen that James Arthur Ray was found guilty of negligent homicide in the course of his business through James Arthur Ray International. In the UK, a former UBS trader has been charged with “suspicion of fraud by abuse of position” in connection with his losing $2 billion in trades.

In addition to such obvious, individual fuck-ups, if a shareholder is determined to have pierced the corporate veil, the person and the company are legally considered one and the same. (I think I’ve mentioned this here before. Planet Laundry has a refreshingly candid explanation.)

And creditors can request that a company shareholder offer a personal guarantee of the money owed. I’m not sure why the Learning Annex didn’t do that in this case.

Yeah. Those are good arguments. I sort of wanted to make the pro-corporation argument after the anti-corporation argument, but I thought it’d be a little confusing to argue two opposing points of view in the same post, and also it was already long.

If I had some business venture, or even just some non-profit venture thingie, I would totally incorporate. Because not doing so when it’s available would be really foolish.

Having said that…..

——————

@Jack,

That’s a perfect, timely, and appropriately horrible example of exactly what I mean. Yes.

Thanks, Shell Corp, for collaborating to kill a bunch of people to help make my point. It’s great that we can work together on this, Shell Corp.

You know what’s really messed up is I heard something about this on the news… but just barely. I don’t understand–a U.S. corporation collaborates to kill maybe 800 people and it isn’t newsworthy?

Everybody should take a moment to think about how scary that is.

@Jack, I was actually thinking about the Yes Men while re-watching Robocop. I was thinking about how the Yes Men had their prank about the golden skeleton and another one or two on bankers and how the bankers had that frightening utter lack of disgust that they were supposed to have.

And I see the corporate suits in Robocop, and I’m thinking “Except for the obviously sci-fi human-robot cop part, this movie is startlingly realistic; especially the part where the 2nd in command next to the CEO is working with the head of the criminal underworld.”

And then you posted that link. So go figure.

Now who wants to bet that the same Supreme Court that gave us Citizen’s United will overturn the Alien Tort Statute? Sometimes it seems like maybe laws only matter if you don’t have large piles of cash to spend on things.

And what is a corporation, really at the end of the day, but a way to legally accumulate a possibly large pile of cash in a manner that minimizes personal risk and liability?

—
Furry cows moo and decompress.

Rob
October 22, 2012 at 3:23 pm

SD,
You are truly something else. Even though this is not something you can stop and there will always be victims, you are doing many people a great service. This website reminds me of the movie Bobby Jones “stroke of genius”. He was the greatest golfer in the world and chose not to be paid as it only leads to corruption (so he stated). I have been on this site for going on 7 hours so far with no sleep.

You can make money on the internet people, don’t be a fucking internet marketer be an entrepreneur. Provide something of substance and true value not that perceived bullshit.

I hope all IM Gurus end up the same way or better yet with the FTC sending them to jail!

Wyrd
January 5, 2013 at 12:20 am

@Robert Kiyosaki is a Scammer,

I think, actually, that Robert Kiyosaki will survive the death of the company–as scammers so often do. He will return to scam another day. It’s like in Pac-Man when you eat one of the ghosts. The little eyes float back to base to get a new body.

Still, the bankruptcy of a company of his is, IMHO, a thing that serves the greater good. So we can say w00t! to that.

Lanna
April 5, 2013 at 1:44 am

Sadly, the real estate training scams are still out there.

“Rich Dad” is doing another event in the Chicago area soon. I got a mailer with two “tickets” (register online for “real” “tickets”) last week.

Right now the Armando Montelongo real estate training infomercial is on Chicago’s channel 9, still trying to fill seats for a downtown Chicago event that happens on Monday night! Details at armando live dot com.

Facebook makes money. Google makes money. And Robert Kiyosaki RichDad plus hoards of other scammers use these ‘ethical’ companies to scam the vulerable.

Do a Google search on Robert Kiyosaki and RichDad – and you get almost nothing but a positive vibe. A one sided story. The opposite of the truth. Are there Google algorithms that punish pages that criticize their advertisers. Probably.

Google and Facebook: in partnership with the scammers. Hey ho.

Wyrd
June 24, 2013 at 8:48 am

@Random stuff,

Yeah the Googles and the Facebooks take the scammers money and this is B-A-D.

Let’s remember that the TV networks have been aiding the scammers since forevers too. Sometimes in the form of a talk show with a scammer as a guest telling you the “secrets to freedom and wealth”. Sometimes by directly taking the scammers money via “infomercial”.

[Engaging word-rant mode]

And about that word–“infomercial”? Why did we ever let them get away with making that into a word? It’s clear intent–as was mentioned at the time–is to blur the line between information and commercial. You know what you get if you mix together “information” and a commercial? You get a half hour long commercial that people semi-knowingly con themselves into believing is something other than a commercial.

Credited for coining the word “infomercial” was hospitality/entertainment impresario Paul Ruffino whose CineStar company was a pioneer in purchasing program-length commercial time.

Where was I? Right. The point of the above rant is that the way all this evil gets to keep on floating–besides it being fairly lucrative–is that it’s all been legitimized. Oh not every single aspect. Luckily most people still believe that getting people killed in a botched sweat lodge operation constitutes crossing some sort of line.

But you look at that ludicrous thing Yanik Silver is doing in the Scamworld videos, for example. And you see the “Get Rich Click!” books with the Steve Wozniak endorsement and you think about the environment in which all that bullshit can happen. Woz managed to build a wooden framed personal computer with color output back when the only alternative for enthusiasts (i.e. hardcore nerds) was the Altair. The Altair was a boxy looking thing with switches on it. (I’m not exaggerating.)

That Woz doesn’t understand that it’s actually harmful to endorse that schlock book and that Yanik has so many attendees to his “live-action infomercial” (I just made that phrase up, but I challenge anyone to say it’s not applicable) is indicative of how fucked up folks’ values are when it comes to this stuff. It also seems to me to reveal a world full of people desperate to believe a dream of something more/better/different. A world full of people willing to look the other way and/or ignore almost any degree of fault (except killing people or maybe walking off with millions and millions when you’re not already an established entity like a bank) if it means the dream gets to go on.

Salty Droid talks of indoctrination. But in this case indoctrination happens not all at once from the actual scammy marketer, but begins much earlier. For some, the first indoctrination occurs while still a child whenever their parent spends a lot of time watching QVC and learns that it’s normal to do that sort of thing and buy that kind of crap.

Regarding Shop At Home stuff, I think South Park has the right of it.

Also, speaking of QVC that reminds me; I need a new wallet.
—
Furry cows moo and decompress.

Anon
June 26, 2013 at 11:49 am

I know this is an older article, but I was doing some googling and came across this. I worked for Peppermint Park once upon a time… The top membership numbers they ever had were around 1000. Not 10,000. And, of course, all the Gucci and Prada bags turned out to be fake. I think Jessie was the only person who knew they were fake for sure.